Is Australia’s commercial creativity slipping behind the rest of the world?

As the advertising industry gathers in the south of France for the annual Cannes Lions celebrating the best creative in the world, the Outdoor Media Association hosted a debate asking one simple but tough question: Is Australia’s commercial creativity slipping behind the rest of the world?

For many years Australia has been considered a global leader in terms of creativity, punching well above its weight at the big global awards shows across categories and sitting in the top five in awards rankings.

But in the last couple of years some in the industry have started to question whether the top 1% of creative campaigns claiming the metal are representative of the rest of the country’s creative output.

So Mumbrella and the Outdoor Media Association challenged four senior ad agency execs and a leading creative marketer to put together the arguments for and against the proposition.

Charmaine Moldrich: ‘we need to raise the bar’

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As Charmaine Moldrich, the CEO of the Outdoor Media Association, told the gathering: “Creativity is certainly something that needs consideration across all media channels. It is a conversation that we, creatives, media agencies, operators and clients don’t have often enough.

“Given that the essence of all of our businesses is to communicate the power and value of our brands and products, it is ironic that we skirt around this issue.

“In this time of seismic shifts in the media landscape we need to raise the bar so that advertising creative becomes the enemy of the mediocre and bland and embraces creativity in a way that is at the heart of our clients’ success.”

Carmen Bekker, marketing consultant

Former European marketing director of JWT kicks off the debate arguing for the idea that Australia is slipping behind.

Unusually she starts by pointing out how well Australia has fared in awards shows in recent years, pointing to success on the Gunn and Big Won reports as evidence of things being rosy – on the surface at least.

As she points out: “We don’t get enough opportunities to work on global brands in Australia, and we’re not exporting enough of our work to other countries.”

But while Australia ranks relatively well there is something that is concerning her.

“It doesn’t really matter if we’re world beating if we can’t beat our next door neighbour,” she says.

“Yes folks, home of the All Blacks, the McWhopper, beer that can be turned into fuel and now into sand and then sold to Dubai, New Zealand.”

She points out that a country that is 35th in terms of ad spend and a 127th in population size manages to rank 6th in the world in the Gunn Report – a country where the entire population is smaller than the population of Sydney. And Auckland sits fourth in terms of global cities for creativity, Sydney is 13th.

“According to the WARC report Auckland based Colenso BBDO was number one creative agency across Australia and New Zealand, and came ninth globally. It was involved in three of the top 10 awarded campaigns across the region, and this is what helped propel Auckland up to fourth place.

“We are getting seriously beaten by New Zealand. What does the US and UK count for if we can’t even beat New Zealand.”

Bekker then shows the example of two beer ads, one from DB Export in Australia, and the other for Pure Blonde.

To help explain the void she picked the brains of Josh Moore, CEO of Y&R New Zealand which created the McWhopper campaign for his thoughts on why there is a gulf. Moore tells her that agencies are smaller and tighter and got to produce more integrated work, and because the economy in NZ was doing relatively well they got more support for commercial creativity.

“To us that gap looks a lot wider than the Tasman Sea. Australia produces world class creativity, but when New Zealand jumps us we need to gain back the advantage and go from good to great,” concludes Bekker.

Simon Fowler, creative director, With Collective

Following Bekker is Kiwi-born creative Simon Fowler, who opens his argument using an edited version of the promotional film created by Special Group New Zealand for the Axis awards there, celebrating New Zealand’s creativity.

He starts by asking why he had packed his bags to leave New Zealand and come to Australia, saying: “It obviously wasn’t because of marriage equality, clean energy, your internet speed (as you guys are worse than New Zealand, or the fact you have legalised Marijuana.

“It’s because I believe that this is actually one of the best creative industries in the world.”

Simon Fowler: “We’ve seen some of the best thinking in the world come out of this country”

He then pointed to the Best Job in the World campaign as the reason he moved across the ditch, describing it as creative and smart, and that it made Australia look like “a pretty awesome place to work”.

“We’ve seen some of the best thinking in the world come out of this country, and far from falling behind in this country we should be proud to work in one of the most creative industries in the world.”

He then points to the D&AD Awards ranking Australia third this year.

Fowler adds: “I believe we are currently living in the golden age of Australian advertising, and we are using storytelling, strategy and innovation to do it. We have some of the best creative people and bravest clients.”

He admits Australian ad budgets aren’t big by global standards, but insists that far from that being a hinderance they force creatives to be better at their jobs.

“I think our limitations actually make us better at our jobs,” he adds.

He continues: “You might argue we don’t have a strong creative culture here, something like the Super Bowl, where everyone rallies round to show they are part of the culture and create cut through. But we do have Australia Day, and there’s one client who is doing this well, cut through the noise every single year to do something really impressive.”

He then plays the Operation Boomerang ad from Meat & Livestock Australia:

“There’s great storytelling and a little bit of earned media in there thanks to the vegan complaints – it was the most complained about campaign of last year.

“It’s big disruptive campaigns like this that show Aussies just how good we are at converting great product, and this client has proven to ingrain themselves as part of the culture, and it’s clients like Howie at the MLA who make our jobs as creatives making world class work possible – how can you possibly argue about that?”

Fowler also points to the rankings for production companies like Finch and Revolver/Will O’Rourke as a sign the local industry can create great storytelling “sought after across the world”.

He also name drops campaigns including Meet Graham and Dumb Ways to Die, and points to the global impact of Australian creatives like David Droga to show how Aussie creativity are impacting the global creative culture.

Andrew Howie, group marketing manager, Meat & Livestock Australia

Following Fowler is the man he gave great credit to for enabling creatives with the lamb work, Andrew Howie.

Andrew Howie: “When you scratch the surface you’ll find there’s not a huge amount of depth under there”

He starts by acknowledging that there is some great work coming out of Australia “the question posed here is whether Australia is falling behind”.

“There’s examples of great work out of Australia, and we’ve seen some today. On the surface there’s a huge amount of work going on in Australia that is fantastic, but when you scratch the surface you’ll find there’s not a huge amount of depth under there,” he explains.

“And being a meat guy, it makes me feel like Chicken Tonight,” he adds, showing an image of the famous ad, the first of several classic Australian ad slogans he proceeds to drop into his argument.

He continues: “It struck me that the 80s and 90s was when Australia really led the pack, and I compare that to recent years and have to say ‘I’m not happy Jan’.”

“With marketing budgets coming under pressure, marketers who are poorly trained are not prepared to take any risks, which seems against the Aussie spirit doesn’t it? ‘C’mon Aussie, c’mon’.”

“We need to find ways to keep our great talent here in Australia, not opening agencies here in New Zealand. Sure a cold, wet and genuinely dreary summer in London sounds appealing, coupled with a short Ryanair flight to Europe for some cold beers, but surely we have to make them realise that ‘The best cold beer is Vic, Victoria Bitter’.”

He also points to the “growing culture of pitching: which he says is destroying partnerships and crippling agencies, adding: “There’s no more hope for enduring ideas to be created as procurement are the ones who make the decision, a bit like ‘My dad, who picks the fruit’.

But he also gives a clarion call to the industry saying in order to fix the rot we need to address the issues he has highlighted above, concluding: :”If we can make this happen we will all be ‘Happy little Vegemites’.”

Alison Tilling, head of planning, BMF

The final presentation is from Alison Tilling, who broadens the conversation around commercial creativity to talk about things like the Vivid festival in Sydney, the film industry and even fashion.

“Commercial creativity at it’s best, whatever arena you are in, impacts real people in the real world,” she explains.

“Talking about advertising one of the main ways we measure that is through effectiveness awards, and actually in the WARC Global Creativity Index we’re fourth – that’s a pretty good result.

“It’s a strong performance across a range of categories as well.”

And in true strategist style Tilling then breaks down what it is that she believes makes Australia a special place for creativity:

“Our unique Aussie culture I think breeds our own unique brand of commercial creativity, it’s in our DNA. The history and culture of commercial creativity is long and varied, but in its recent history Australia has been an outpost, relatively isolated, it’s been forged from the edges.

“And that begets a thriftiness and a making do, a curiosity that is wide but also an inward looking curiosity that is focussed on very real and very immediate problems, and that’s what breeds amazing commercial creativity that really works.”

She points to a local example of Koala Mattresses, developed by someone with no background in bedding who wanted to innovate the model of the industry, by developing a new material which gets around the problems some traditional mattress materials face in this country.

“At our best we’d rather be a problem finding and a problem solving culture,” she adds.

Another element Tilling says makes Australia so creative as a culture is ‘rogue spirit’.

The debaters

She explains: “Australians don’t like being dictated to. Take for example Topshop. A global fashion brand that’s been really successful, especially in the UK, and has pioneered a few things we now take for granted like buying clothes straight from the catwalk.

“In Australia it’s just gone into receivership because it tried to dictate to the market, it tried to dictate the price and the stock and there was no allowance made for what might work here.

“We love to adapt brands that are proven globally. But having landed here they can absolutely feel stale, and if Australians feel they can do something better they will.

“We like to throw out the rulebook to decide how a product or an ad might work, and our swagger helps us punch above our weight. It’s also when we’re consistent, when we have those long relationships between partner and agency, that’s what gives you the confidence to be brave.”

She concludes: “I’m not arguing we’re the number one in the world, it’s really hard to set that benchmark. But the question is are we declining, and absolutely no. Our unique brand of creativity and the way we interpret that is really strong.

“We can’t get complacent though, it’s up to us to keep us alive and keep it strong.”

OPEN3 is the third in a series of books on OOH creative developed by the OMA. More than a book of images, it features opinions and experiences about advertising and creativity from some of the world’s most formidable advertising leaders.

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